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SARCEE RESERVE - Chief Clifford Big Plume, who narrowly lost the 1984 election, was soundly re-elected last Wednesday with a substantial majority.

Big Plume defeated incumbent Roy Whitney by nine votes, receiving 106 votes to Whitney's 97. Other challenger Bruce Starlight received 55 votes.

The election was the third election in as many years for the band, whose reserve lies on Calgary's western boundary.

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A tiny Indian band in a remote region of British Columbia has reluctantly ended a remarkable chapter in the history of Indian politics. For years the Kluskus Indian band waged a brave and lonely campaign for financial independence. The struggle ended in April, though, when the band began accepting government funding. The Kluskus band was probably the last band in Canada to refuse government money.

On the face of it, refusing government money is crazy - especially when everyone else is complaining they don't get enough.

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Moral support has been offered by the Metis Association of Alberta (MAA) to the Manitoba Metis Federation (MMF) in what is being called a beginning of new strategic approaches toward the achievement of constitutional rights to land and self-government for the Metis.

At a press conference November 13 in Edmonton, MAA President Sam Sinclair and MMF President Yvon Dumont were in agreement for the MAA to join in the constitutional land claims case, launched earlier this year by the MMF and scheduled for court on January 7 of next year.

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WASBACA/DESMARAIS

On November 21, I made my first trip into the Wabasca/Desmarais area, approximately 145 km northeast of Slave Lake.

First impressions can last you a lifetime. My first impression after driving through the Bigstone Cree Band reserve and into the hamlets of Wabasca and Desmarais was one of "this is not what I expected."

Modern buildings clashed with older ones, all of them lining the banks of Wabasca Lake. I drove by a new high school, new stores and older ones like the Hudson's Bay. Theres was even a pizza joint.

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A new organization calling itself the New Status Indian Council of Alberta, with a grand chief as president, has been formed by former board members and members of the Native Council if Canada (Alberta) dissatisfied with its president, Doris Ronnenberg, and the organization she represents.

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ELIZABETH SETTLEMENT - Amoco Canada President T. Don Stacy has announced that his company will spend nearly $8 million during 1987 on further evaluation of the company's Elizabeth Settlement heavy oil lease. The spending will be in the form of a 16-well project with drilling expected to begin in July of next year. In accordance with the agreement, members of the settlement will participate in much of this work.

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FISHING LAKE - On the basement of the community hall is a temporary classroom that also serves as a lunchroom. There, while the school is under construction, Mrs. Irene Calliou shares a small piece of Cree culture with Metis children on the Fishing Lake Settlement.

Every schoolday, elementary children from ECS to Grade 6 are taught to speak and recognize some basis words and phrases in Cree.

They are all learning to count in the Native tongue. Some Grade 6ers can count to 50 or 100 and even the youngest at four years old can count up to five.

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COLD LAKE - Mobil Oil has announced it will spend $12 million constructing a heavy oil steam stimulation plant near its existing Iron River battery west of Cold Lake. The project is slated to begin a six-month construction phase in June 1987 and at its peak will employ about 50 people.

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Ahneen, hello. How are you at finding stuff? Are you the hunter, gatherer type yet, or has agriculture and Safeway got you as their grocery hostage, too? Every year around this time with the leaves just off the trees, snow smattered on the ground, I get

the urge to find some bushy place to do some personal skulking around.